


The Development of Fear

by WingletBlackbird



Series: Anakin Skywalker's Character [8]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Gen, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr, cross-posted from tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 14:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17003391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingletBlackbird/pseuds/WingletBlackbird
Summary: Why fear of loss, specifically of loved ones, has always been Anakin's worse fear over any other. This essay discussed how it might have developed in the midst of slavery.





	The Development of Fear

Anakin is sensitive to matters of slavery, but it is clear, I think, that Anakin’s number one fear, that just kept getting worse and worse as he got older, was always fear of loss/abandonment. Nothing could be worse to him than loss. How I’ve always headcanoned it is that Anakin used to watch slave auctions before Qui-Gon came, and he used to see mothers and children separated and it really upset him: The children and mothers crying out to each other, fighting to get to each other, and being forcibly restrained as they were dragged off to separate masters, and sometimes separate planets, possibly never to ever see each other again. When he and his mom were sold to Gardulla, Anakin was about three, and he remembers his mom making sure that Anakin was seen nursing still. (Extended breast-feeding actually used to be quite common before the Industrial Revolution IRL. Most kids start to self-wean around 3-4. In Victorian times, IIRC, maybe just before the Victorian age, in British culture most children were expected to nurse until two before they were weaned. It’s not actually that weird, but I digress.) That way, if they saw  Anakin was still “dependent” on his mother, it would reduce the chances of separation. Anakin never forgot that uncertainty and instability.

When they were owned by Watto, things were a bit better, but Anakin was a more valuable slave to Watto than his mom. As such, Anakin always worried that if money got tight, Mom might get sold. This is when, I feel, Anakin began to take the burden of protecting his loved ones onto his own shoulders, because he was the gifted mechanic, and pod-racer, which meant it was on him to make sure Watto never need to sell his mom. 

So, Anakin leaves it all behind to go to Coruscant, and TPM happens, and Qui-Gon dies. Qui-Gon was the only person there, the only Jedi anyway, who actually gave a rip about him, and the man ups and dies, and now what? He’s left his mom, and he’s lost Qui-Gon. His fear is well on it’s way to being a complex. I dare say, the moment Obi-Wan showed any affection to Anakin, Anakin became clingy. He cannot lose another parental figure in his life. (Incidentally, I don’t think Obi-Wan saw himself as a father figure so much as an elder brother figure which I think is part of the Obi-Wan&Anakin tragedy.) 

Now he’s with the Jedi, and he’s always in the back of his mind wondering: How’s my mom? Is she okay? What if Watto sold her because money got tight? Will I be able to find her again if he has? What if her new master is really cruel? What if she’s dead and I don’t know it? No, no, I would feel that in the Force. I know I would! Wouldn’t I? Half the reason Anakin freaks out the way he did in AoTC when his Mom dies is because it is an outward manifestation of his own self-loathing. For Anakin, it is not a parent’s job to protect their child, it is on both the child and the parent to protect each other, and he failed. 

We all know what happens after that. Ultimately, I think Anakin has always been deeply afraid of loss, and that is his biggest fear which continually grows bigger, (which is, frankly, more the fault of the Jedi than anything IMHO. They never do anything to help his poor mental health, and emotional state.) This is hinted at in TPM, when Yoda asks Anakin if he’s afraid to lose his mother. While I believe that returning to slavery is a very massive fear for Anakin, as has been speculated, he has always been the type to worry more about others, especially people he cares about, rather than himself. (Although I suppose fear of loss could be argued to be a mix of both worry for others and yourself…) Moreover, Anakin’s fear of returning to slavery wouldn’t be something I think he’d be really as aware of, or want to face, because, in many ways, his approach to life didn’t really change much as a slave or a Jedi. He is still subject to the will of others, and his wants, desires, beliefs, and opinions, were treated as having little worth. As such, that fear wasn’t something that cropped up much unless, in the early years of apprenticeship, he feared being rejected by the council, or unless he encountered pirates and slavers and the like. It wasn’t his primary, always-present, debilitating fear the way loss was. That one was ever-present almost since birth, I think. What use is freedom if you are alone with it?


End file.
